London Gateway, the UK’s newest deep sea port, is showing signs of starting to make its anticipated inroads into Asia-Europe container shipping trades.
The latest developments in that context were outlined to Asia Cargo News by senior executives of the DP World-owned port, located 25 miles east of London on the north bank of the River Thames, during the official opening on July 20 of the first major facility at its adjacent logistics park.
They confirmed the planned arrival in August of the first vessel operating a new deep sea container shipping service into London Gateway from Australia and Asia. They also expressed strong hopes that other Asia-Europe trade mainline services would follow in the coming months.
The imminent new Asian shipping connection will be provided by global container shipping giant MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company) through an immediate enhancement of its Australia Express service between Australia and north Europe, via Asia, announced in mid-July.
The shipping line said the new northbound port rotation for that service, which will be operated with 5,500 TEU vessels, would be Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Fremantle), Singapore, Sri Lanka (Colombo), Saudi Arabia (King Abdullah), Spain (Valencia), London Gateway and north continental Europe (Antwerp and Le Havre).
Southbound, it continued, the rotation would be London Gateway, Continental Europe (Antwerp, Le Havre, Fos-Sur-Mer, La Spezia, Naples, Gioia Tauro), Indian Ocean (Port Louis, Pointe des Galets) and back to Australia, with the first port of call there being Sydney. “Australia Express will now provide direct calls between London Gateway and Sydney, offering the fastest direct service in the market connecting Australia with the UK and the north west Continent (of Europe),” claimed MSC.
Graeme Clarke, DP World London Gateway park development director, confirmed the port is expecting the first inbound MSC Australia Express service vessel to dock there in August.
Asked about the possibility of attracting Asian trade mainline services to the southeast England port, which began operations 18 months ago, he pointed out that some of the container lines already calling there with regular sailings to/from other markets like South Africa, West Africa and South America were also active in Asian trades.
“Lines regularly serving London Gateway at present include Hamburg Sud, which is currently by far the biggest customer of the port, MOL, Hapag-Lloyd and MSC. In total, we now have 12 shipping lines calling and eight weekly services and while we haven’t got an Asia-Europe trade mainline call at the moment, many of the players in that market are already here,” said Clarke.
He also confirmed the importance attached by London Gateway’s management to attracting Asia-Europe trade shipping lines. “As you can imagine, nothing has a higher priority for DP World here at the moment than making that happen. We are talking to all the players in that market and they are looking very closely at what we are doing. We are already taking some of their ships on an ad hoc basis and I think in the coming weeks and months there will definitely be a major shift to this port.”
In that context, he pointed out that work had started earlier this year on the construction of a third berth at the port. Due to become operational in the second half of 2016, the 400-metre berth will have an alongside water depth of 17 metres and be equipped with four 138-metre-high quay cranes, 20 automated stacking cranes and 10 automated stacking modules.
Meanwhile, the port has just seen the official opening, by UK transport minister Robert Goodwill, of the London Gateway Logistics Centre located on the immediately adjacent large logistics park.
Owned by DP World and operated by UK logistics provider Import Services Limited, the multi-user high-tech facility initially comprises 16,800 square metres of distribution and logistics space, plus 2,400 square metres of office accommodation, with the potential to be expanded to a total of 36,000 square metres. It offers a range of pay-as-you-go import and export services, including cross-docking, high volume order processing, pre-retailing and distribution both to retailers and direct to consumers.
The centre actually started operations two months prior to the official opening and, according to Clarke, is “filling up very quickly.” He said that business included handling and processing some Asian import cargo arriving in the UK through other English deep sea ports.
Work is also well under way on a second major logistics centre in the port park, a 50/50 “speculative development” joint venture between DP World and Prologis, a leading global industrial real estate developer.
Comprising 28,000 square metres of warehousing with 15 metres clear internal height and 75 heavy goods vehicle trailer parking spaces, including 41 spaces at dock doors, plus nearly 1,400 square metres of office space, the centre is due to be completed in September. “We believe the building will be let quite quickly,” commented Clarke.
By Phil Hastings
Europe Correspondent | London
